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US stock markets to open significantly lower this morning (SPY -0.7%) as geopolitical saber rattling continues to unrest investors and moving assets to 'safe-havens'. The important Core CPI and Retail Sales reported lower for March.

Looking at the last three columns (below), the first one (Actual), is what was reported this morning. The second column (Forecast) is what analysts had forecast and the third column is the previous report. Full calendar HERE.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The longevity of the technology stocks rally is on the line next week as Netflix Inc kicks off the earnings season for a sector that has mushroomed to account for more than a fifth of the U.S. stock market's value.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Uber's popular ride-sharing network has repeatedly failed to promptly suspend and investigate its California drivers when passengers report them driving drunk, state regulators charged in an enforcement action, recommending $1.13 million in fines.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp is likely to win creditors' approval for offering its prized memory chip business stake as collateral for new loans and loan commitments worth around 1 trillion yen ($9.2 billion), sources briefed about the matter said on Friday.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The first quarter of 2017 was "difficult" for carmaker Fiat Chrysler but this will not affect the company's targets for this year and next, Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing for unemployment aid unexpectedly fell last week and consumer sentiment rose early this month amid continued optimism over household finances, suggesting a sharp slowdown in job growth in March was an aberration.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Big U.S. banks revealed more evidence of a slowdown in loan growth in their earnings reports on Thursday, though executives assured there is still healthy demand from borrowers and no reason to worry about the state of the economy.

If you read closely between the warped headlines of the establishment media, you will eventually find the truth about Trump's decision to strike the Syrian government: it was illegal.

Yet most mainstream media outlets clearly supported the strike. Many U.S. allies also supported the strike, including so-called peaceful countries such as New Zealand, which stated the strikes were a "proportional response to a specific incident - the chemical weapons atrocity." New Zealand also said they would consider sending troops to Syria if the American government requested them.

Why isn't the legality of Trump's reckless move even on the table for discussion?

Is it because this is, yet again, no exception to the rule that — as history has shown us — the United States ...

One day after the Trump administration demonstratively used the GBU-43/B Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb (MOAB, also known as Mother Of All Bombs) the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal in Afghanistan, in a clear show of force meant to send a signal to North Korea, it released a video of the explosion.

Afghan officials said 36 militants were killed in the strike in Nangarhar province, near the Pakistan border, where the US military previously estimated ISIS had 600 to 800 active fighters. There were no civilian casualties, according to the Ministry of Defense statement, which also said several ISIS caves and ammunition caches were destroyed. U.S. officials said precautions were taken to avoid civilian casualties. The ISIS commander in the area was among the dead, Afghanistan's presidential palace said.

Hakim Khan, 50, a resident of Achin district where the attack took place, was quoted by CBS as saying he welcomed the attack on ISIS, saying, "I want 100 times more bombings on this group."

But fierce opposition among Afghans also surfaced. Former President Hamid Karzai condemned the strike, saying it "is not the war on terror but inhuman, and (the) most brutal misuse of our country as (a) testing ground for new and dangeorus weapons. It is upon us,Afghans, to stop the USA."

Karzi said, "I vehemently and in strongest words condemn the dropping of the latest weapon."

With just two days to go until North Korea's "Day of the Sun" celebrations, when as reported yesterday it may conduct its 6th nuclear test at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, NBC reports citing multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials that in the latest stepwise escalation, the U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that Kim Jong-Un's nation North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test. Note: North Korea does not even have to carry out the text: mere conviction on the side of the US that it would, is sufficient.

As first reported yesterday, North Korea warned that a "big event" is near, and U.S. officials say signs point to a nuclear test that could come as early as this weekend. According to multiple sources, the U.S. intelligence community has reported with "moderate confidence" that North Korea is preparing for its sixth underground nuclear test, though the U.S. is also in the dark regarding the specific timing.

The launch of a preemptive attack would naturally threatens a counterattack by Kim: the U.S. is thus "worried" that its strikes could provoke the volatile and unpredictable North Korean regime to launch its own blistering attack on its southern neighbor. "The leadership in North Korea has shown absolutely no sign or interest in diplomacy or dialogue with any of the countries involved in this issue," said Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

When Donald Trump was elected, there was so much optimism among libertarians and conservatives, it was almost palpable. However, it's only been several months into his first term, and it's becoming quite apparent that Trump is no savior. In retrospect, it was foolish to think any single person could snap his fingers, and reverse decades of financial mismanagement and political corruption. It was foolish to think that he could dismantle an entrenched bureaucracy that is more powerful than most people realize.

But not everyone was convinced that Trump was going to be able to turn this ship around. Peter Schiff knew that the damage done by the political establishment was irreversible, and that our financial system was living on borrowed time. In a recent interview with Future Money Trends, Schiff explains why Donald Trump can't stop the inevitable, and how you can crash proof your assets ahead of the economic pain that is coming:

Donald Trump should already be disappointing a lot of people who thought we were going to get change, we were going to make America great again. We didn't repeal Obamacare, that's here to stay. Major tax reform is dead. We're dropping bombs.

I mean it's the same old same old right? Big government... bigger deficits... more cheap money... keep the air in the bubble. We're headed for a major major crisis.

The factors pushing the U.S. president into a closer embrace of China have been apparent for some time: the rising threat from North Korea paired with a better economy at home. If the latter disappoints, however, tensions could rebound quickly.

No one saw it coming, but the family-friendly animated flick pulled in $26.3 million at the box office over the weekend, pushing its domestic gross to $89.4 million and its world-wide tally to $199.7 million.

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